Well yes, this must be a top priority for Nisus.
Thanks for letting us know this is a priority, we do tally these requests, so "me too" posts are useful.
Yes, being able to footnote from a table is absolutely essential. Can we get an idea when this is going to be fixed? I might have to switch to Mellel. The work-around with manual footnotes is not an acceptable fix.
So, here is mine: Mee too!
Obviously this is not a true substitute for the real thing, but the better way to create notes in a table, rather than manually numbering them, is to use cross-references. Here is a macro that inserts a (fake) footnote in a table, using this method. Basically the footnote is placed after the table and the reference is linked to its location in the table with a cross-reference. Multiple notes in a table are ordered by row, then by column, and finally by their order inside the cell, but if you reorder cells etc. then the order will not update automatically as it relies on the order of the markers after the table. It would be possible to write a macro to straighten out such cases.
An attempt at hiding the reference number is also made, but this is apparently futile, as Nisus regularly strips out styles applied to footnote reference markers. That's probably for the best, since the hidden stuff might get lost. They could easily be searched for and hidden at print-out time.
Last edited by phspaelti on 2017-05-22 01:17:42, edited 2 times in total.
I'd also like to add a "me too." Without this feature, I can't include a citation for a captioned picture that has text flowing around it. Thanks!
Ugh. Still not implemented. This was a deal killer for me, too. Every other feature had me looking forward to stepping up from Word and Pages.
Interesting that this is stil out there. Just today I needed this.
Just wanted to let the Nisus people know that this should be a priority, as no footnotes in a table is a dealbreaker for academic work. I downloaded the demo, but will not pay for the full version until this problem has been fixed.
So... as a prospective Nisus Pro purchaser with the same problem as everyone else on this thread, I thought I would contribute MY workaround which is only partially useful.
I need to write up some of Saadi's Golestan, which is a mixture of prose and poetry, in Farsi with footnotes on the same page. The poetry needs to be formatted with kashidas. Kashidas, for those that don't know, is a way of extending the physical length of a word by extending certain characters - the end result is usually used for full justification. A beyt, (verse) of Persian poetry, is split into two halves and is usually written across the page so the first half is in one column and the second half is in the second column. There needs to be a gap between the two columns to show the two halves of the beyt clearly. I would also like the poetry to be indented slightly.
I can't seem to get the poetry sections to flow across two columns, where the first half of the beyt is in the first column and the second half is in the second column. Also the kashida formatting macro that comes with Nisus Pro does not work well across columns. So I thought to myself 'table'. I added a table with three columns (I tried two columns with padding but I don't want to pad the top and bottom), then put the first half of the beyt in the FIRST column and second half in the THIRD column. Then formatted using the kashida macro. This looks like what I wanted, though I very slightly modified the kashida formatting so it is more to my taste.
But then I hit the problem: footnotes. This is what brought me to this thread. It seems after 9 years(?!) that this was mentioned Nisus Pro still cannot add footnote references into tables. This is an absolute killer. It makes the product, without a usable workaround, useless for me - I NEED footnote references in tables so I can fill the requirements of the poetry formatting that I require.
I had a look at phspaelti's comment from 2014 and used cross-references to footnotes. But how do I get the footnotes in the first place? The HORRIBLE workaround is to add the poetry twice. The first copy is outside the table and is where I add the footnote. Then I write the same poetry into the table, format it with kashidas, then add cross-references to the footnotes in the first copy. Finally I format the first copy with the colour white so it does not appear in PDF exports (though of course it is still there and selectable if you copy the whole PDF).
I admit that this is a horrible workaround and it shouldn't be necessary. Why can we not have footnote references in tables?
I have attached a PDF (size 33k) of a test document so you can see the end result. If you select all of the text you will see a bar where the invisible text is.
I have found another place where footnotes cannot be inserted: text boxes. Due to the way I want to format the poetry I previously described, I want the poetry to be justified but any footnote reference to appear beyond that. I thought 'text box', but I can't add a footnote reference there either.
1. If I add diacritics to show the non-written vowel or correct pronunciation and then chose to format using kashidas, the diacritic is pushed neared to the letter following rather than remaining near the first letter.
2. Sometimes the font 'breaks', even though there is not a problem with the font per se. The end of the letter breaks.
In the file I have attached, the first line shows a correctly formatted line of poetry. This is the simplest type of line. It has no diacritics and there are no footnote references (or not-real footnote references) at the end of the line.
The second line shows a line AFTER I have tidied up the troublesome diacritics. However the full justification includes the footnote reference so the poetry itself is not flush.
The third line is a copy of the second line but without any tidying up (i.e. after applying the kashidas). It is clear that the diacritics are pushed to the following letter, and that the 'te' and 'jim' letters are now broken.
I am finding that using Nisus Pro is problematic rather than a pleasure. I am having to workaround lack of footnotes in tables, broken kashidas and justification problems.
Maybe what I am looking for does not exist. But certainly some features do exist elsewhere (e.g. OpenOffice allows footnotes in tables). Something that Nisus Pro does well, that I can't find elsewhere, is multiiple footnotes on one line.
squirrel wrote: I had a look at phspaelti's comment from 2014 and used cross-references to footnotes. But how do I get the footnotes in the first place? The HORRIBLE workaround is to add the poetry twice. The first copy is outside the table and is where I add the footnote. Then I write the same poetry into the table, format it with kashidas, then add cross-references to the footnotes in the first copy. Finally I format the first copy with the colour white so it does not appear in PDF exports (though of course it is still there and selectable if you copy the whole PDF).
Why are you inserting the poetry twice? You don't need the actual text for the cross-reference. You just insert all the footnotes in a row, directly after the table. Then you cross-reference just the footnote number into the table. The comment you are referring to includes a macro that does this all in one step, directly from the footnote position inside the table.
It's still not a great workaround since even if you apply white color to the footnote numbers after the table, Nisus keeps removing it. Also it wouldn't work right if you have a multipage table. You would need to use multiple short tables.
And now going out more on a limb here, because I don't use Arabic. Is it not possible to arrange the poetry using tabs? Obviously the macro seems to be written for paragraph wide justification, but perhaps that problem can be solved. If you used tabs, footnotes would become a non-issue. But obviously Arabists will have to tell me if that is not possible.
phspaelti wrote: [...]And now going out more on a limb here, because I don't use Arabic. Is it not possible to arrange the poetry using tabs? Obviously the macro seems to be written for paragraph wide justification, but perhaps that problem can be solved. If you used tabs, footnotes would become a non-issue. But obviously Arabists will have to tell me if that is not possible.
In NWP it is possible to arrange lines of poetry with note references by using tabs and kerning.
In NW Classic this was achieved by using Forced Justify Tab which justified symmetrically two hemistichs of Arabic/Persian poetry on a single line, taking care of any kerning.
Here is an example to show how kerning, both Tighten and Loosen as appropriate, can be used to workaround this layout problem.